Reuben Hersh
{{Short description|American mathematician (1927–2020)}}
Reuben Hersh (December 9, 1927 – January 3, 2020) was an American mathematician and academic, best known for his writings on the nature, practice, and social impact of mathematics. Although he was generally known as Reuben Hersh, late in life he sometimes used the name Reuben Laznovsky in recognition of his father's ancestral family name. His work challenges and complements mainstream philosophy of mathematics.
Education
After receiving a B.A. in English literature from Harvard University in 1946, Hersh spent a decade writing for Scientific American and working as a machinist. After losing his right thumb when working with a band saw, he decided to study mathematics at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. In 1962, he was awarded a Ph.D. in mathematics from New York University; his advisor was P.D. Lax. He was affiliated with the University of New Mexico since 1964, where he was professor emeritus.
Academic career
Hersh wrote a number of technical articles on partial differential equations, probability, random evolutions ([https://www.jstor.org/stable/44236397 example]), and linear operator equations. He was the co-author of four articles in Scientific American, and 12 articles in the Mathematical Intelligencer.
Hersh was best known as the co-author with Philip J. Davis of The Mathematical Experience (1981), which won a National Book Award in Science.
[https://www.nationalbook.org/awards-prizes/national-book-awards-1983 "National Book Awards – 1983"]. National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-03-07.
This was the 1983 award for paperback Science.
From 1980 to 1983 in National Book Award history there were dual hardcover and paperback awards in most categories, and several nonfiction subcategories including General Nonfiction. Most of the paperback award-winners were reprints, including this one. Hersh and Martin Davis won the 1984 Chauvenet Prize for their Scientific American{{cite journal |last1=Davis |first1=Martin |last2=Hersh |first2=Reuben |year=1973 |title=Hilbert's 10th Problem |journal=Scientific American |publisher=Springer Science and Business Media LLC |volume=229 |issue=5 |pages=84–91 |doi=10.1038/scientificamerican1173-84 |bibcode=1973SciAm.229e..84D |issn=0036-8733}} article on Hilbert's tenth problem.
Hersh advocated what he called a "humanist" philosophy of mathematics, opposed to both Platonism (so-called "realism") and its rivals nominalism/fictionalism/formalism. He held that mathematics is real, and its reality is social-cultural-historical, located in the shared thoughts of those who learn it, teach it, and create it. His article "The Kingdom of Math is Within You" (a chapter in his Experiencing Mathematics, 2014) explains how mathematicians' proofs compel agreement, even when they are inadequate as formal logic. He sympathized with the perspectives on mathematics of Imre Lakatos and Where Mathematics Comes From, George Lakoff and Rafael Nunez, Basic Books.{{clarify|date=March 2012}}{{citation needed|date=March 2012}}
Books
- 1981, Hersh and Philip Davis. The Mathematical Experience. (Mariner Books, 1999).
- 1986, Hersh and Philip Davis. Descartes' Dream: The World According to Mathematics. (Dover, 2005)
- 1997. [https://books.google.com/books?id=cocpm4oBKqwC What Is Mathematics, Really?] Oxford Univ. Press.
- 2006, edited by Hersh. [http://www.math.unm.edu/%7Erhersh/Intro_to_Unconventional.doc 18 Unconventional Essays on the Nature of Mathematics.] Springer Verlag.
- 2009, Hersh and Vera John-Steiner. [https://books.google.com/books?id=gvsHAnAuIp4C Loving and Hating Mathematics]. Princeton University Press
- Greenwood, P.; Hersh, R. "Stochastic differentials and quasi-standard random variables", Probabilistic methods in differential equations (Proc. Conf., Univ. Victoria, Victoria, B. C., 1974), pp. 35–62. Lecture Notes in Math., Vol. 451, Springer, Berlin, 1975.
- 2014, Reuben Hersh. [https://books.google.com/books?id=8YkCAQAAQBAJ Experiencing Mathematics: What do we do, when we do mathematics?] American Mathematical Society.
- 2015, Reuben Hersh. [https://books.google.com/books?id=ammxBgAAQBAJ Peter Lax: Mathematician]. American Mathematical Society.
See also
Notes
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References
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External links
- [https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/bfm%3A978-3-319-61231-7%2F1.pdf Humanizing Mathematics and its Philosophy: Essays celebrating the 90th Birthday of Reuben Hersh]
- [https://ff3df8c5-a-62cb3a1a-s-sites.googlegroups.com/site/reubenhersharticlesetc/home/articles/ideal.pdf The Ideal Mathematician, with Phillip Davis] (Note: Google.com, somewhat unfortunately, decides to redirect this link weirdly, as of May 2018).
- [http://www.math.unm.edu/%7Erhersh/ Web page] at the Univ. of New Mexico.
- [http://sites.google.com/site/reubenhersharticlesetc/ Published Articles] at googlesites.
- [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYgiVnQubyw AMS video interview with Reuben Hersh part 1]
{{Chauvenet Prize recipients}}
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Category:20th-century American mathematicians
Category:21st-century American mathematicians
Category:National Book Award winners
Category:American philosophers of mathematics
Category:American science writers
Category:Harvard University alumni